that accelerates the transition to a new social order.
Violence has played a leading role in Chilean political history, through riots, uprisings, civil wars, coups d’état, and other types of regular and irregular manifestations. Many times it has been state agents who have exercised it in the name of a government or an idea. But there have also been cases where violence has been practiced outside the known institutional framework, especially in revolutionary moments, when what is at stake is the legitimacy of the entire system. Violence, in other words, has not been an isolated phenomenon, but has accompanied us over the decades and much more closely than we would like to admit.
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Now, the fact that this is so does not mean that violence should be allowed or tolerated. One of the great victories of modernity and its quintessential political regime, representative democracy, is the existence of the rule of law, understood as tools that subordinate human passions to a set of rules known and respected by the vast majority. Without them, society would be constantly subjected to a fratricidal struggle of all against all, with the consequent predominance of the most grandiloquent and explosive voices. The rule of law thus acts as a condition of possibility for political stability, allowing even minorities to have some type of representation in the public space.
In recent years, we have witnessed in Chile the retreat of the rule of law at the hands of organized crime and its new forms of delinquency. Likewise, political coexistence has deteriorated as a result of the unparalleled violence of the social outbreak, during which not only the police were overwhelmed, but the most radical groups were very close to overthrowing the democratically elected president. Here we reach the heart of the matter: it is surprising that during Gabriel Boric’s government political violence has completely disappeared, despite a stagnant economy, unemployment often in double digits, and a significant decline in the quality of life of the popular and middle classes. How to explain this anomaly?
The answer is less surprising than dramatic: an important part of the Chilean left simply does not tolerate right-wing government. It accepts and applauds its own electoral victories but dismisses its defeats as contrary to the demands of the “people.” It calls itself democratic but is not capable of defending democracy when a minister is attacked for trying to carry out the government program that was clearly victorious at the polls. The president of the Communist Party stated a few days ago that the funa against Ximena Lincolao had been “a political mistake” because it allowed José Antonio Kast to recover the agenda. What a champion of democracy! What a way to defend institutionalism! What would he have said if the funada had been the Minister of Science Jeannette Jara?
The PC and the Broad Front usually say that a violent system, like the one supposedly existing in Chile, can only be fought with more violence. This argument is spurious from every angle: it is incomprehensible that the system has these characteristics only when the right governs. Until that changes, until the left assimilates the magnitude of the recent defeat, the funas and other violent actions will continue to have space. Since it is unlikely that this reflection will happen in a relatively short period of time, there is nothing left but to be alert and defend the rule of law with the very rules it provides: prevention, prosecution, and, if warranted, subsequent sanction of those who commit any act of political violence.